The Horror Novel That Stephen King Couldn’t Stop Reading

ByEllen Gamerman

When Stephen King calls a book “scary as hell and hypnotic,” don’t read it late at night in a tent in the woods.

That was the moment on my vacation when I picked up “Broken Monsters,” a new thriller by Lauren Beukes. Somewhere between the dead boy getting discovered fused to the bottom half of a deer and the part where the schoolyard bully vomits teeth, I regretted not having a door with a deadbolt. It turns out, there are scarier things than the shower curtains in campground bathrooms.

The book weaves between Detroit detective Gabi Versado’s search for a serial killer and the murderer himself—a supernatural presence who fancies himself an artist. Along the way, Beukes explores the strange hobby concerning what she calls gaff animals—a kind of sideshow taxidermy involving the melding of different creatures—and sinks her fangs into the absurdities of the contemporary art scene, where the murderer’s art gains brief cachet before its secrets are revealed. The novel nabbed a coveted tweet from King, who said he couldn’t put it down.

The novel, which won praise from U.K. critics earlier this summer, hits U.S. shelves Sept. 16.

Beukes, a South African writer (she says her last name rhymes with “mucus”), is best known to American audiences for “The Shining Girls,” a 2013 novel about a time-traveling serial killer. The book was optioned by the independent studio Media Rights Capital and Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company, Appian Way.

A former journalist who also writes screenplays and comics, Beukes has produced work for vastly different audiences. She completed her 2010 noir fantasy novel “Zoo City” while working as a writer on a Disney children’s TV show about a princess and her dragon friends. She also directed a documentary about a female impersonation beauty pageant in Cape Town.

The publisher of “Broken Monsters,” Mulholland Books, will unveil an online trailer for the novel with creepy images such as a throbbing bloody body part and a glop of glue on a patch of hair. Beukes, whose novel was included in Amazon’s fall books preview, will tour the U.S. this month.

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